The Legend of the Great Sigourney Weaver

My latest Badlands episode was pitched to me with a helluva challenge. My editor Zeth came to me and said, “We want to do an episode about Sigourney Weaver,” which made me raise an eyebrow. As far as I was aware, Sigourney Weaver wasn’t really someone with a reputation for sex, drugs, and other lurid activity, ya know? I feel like she’s a pretty wholesome person.

But Zeth had an idea. There was – as I learned — apparently a really fucked up murder case that got into all kinds of slippery complications in the legal system. And the killer — who, to be clear, definitely did it — apparently had a serious mental break that involved worshiping Sigourney Weaver as a goddess.

So that would be my “in” to the story. Tell the story of Sigourney Weaver’s life, through the veil of this horrifying crime.

I always do a lot of research for these podcasts. But this is the only time I found myself looking up old court transcripts and appeals. Badlands is a stylized show, and I wanted to honor that pulpy aesthetic without glamorizing the horror and trauma at the center of it. I wanted to approach it with empathy and truth, inasmuch as I could in this situation.

I think I did a pretty damn good job, if I do say so myself.

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My new BADLANDS episode on Diego Maradona is out now!

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I’m not much of a sports guy — but that doesn’t stop me from writing a helluva’n anti-imperialist crime yarn! And that’s exactly what I did for my latest Badlands episode, which focuses on the football legend Diego Maradona.

Diego Maradona was busted for drugs, prostitution, and shooting an air rifle at reporters. He was also associated with one of the biggest and oldest organized crime families in Italy. Despite all of this, Diego Maradona somehow still showed up the next day and played a great game of soccer. He even turned a soccer match into a weapon during a centuries-long war between England and Argentina. Diego Maradona was more than one of the greatest of all time on the pitch – he was also one of the most infamous.

You can check it out below, or wherever you listen to your podcasts:

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Exploring the lurid life of Armie Hammer on BADLANDS

My script for the Season 5 premiere of the Badlands podcast could not be more opposite from the script I wrote for the Season 4 finale. Okay well maybe that’s not entirely true — they both involved a lot of sensitivity and careful wording. In the case of Robin Williams, that was because of the tragedy surrounding his suicide. In the case of Armie Hammer, that was, uhhh, because of ongoing legal matters and some really dark sexual fetishes that I don’t want to kink-shame but also went to some pretty disturbing places.

So, ya know. Tread lightly and all. But in very, very different ways.

Here’s the synopsis for the Badlands Season 5 premiere, written by me, titled “Armie Hammer: Dirty Texts, Bloodthirsty Fetishes, and a Cannibal Kink”

With his chiseled jawline and matinee idol good looks, Armie Hammer could have been another leading man like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. But Armie Hammer was not most movie stars. He wasn't even most people. On the surface, his life was perfectly curated and appeared picture-perfect, with no major public scandals or dirt-digging by the press. But his increasingly bizarre appearances in interviews and on social media, not to mention leaked videos and texts, led to shocking revelations about what was really going on behind closed doors. And what was going on was more wild than the untamed dreams of a Hollywood screenwriter.

You can listen to the episode below, or wherever you get your podcasts:

My new BADLANDS podcast about Robins Williams is now out everywhere!

I’ve been doing some freelance writing work lately for Double Elvis Productions, the company behind the popular true crime music podcast Disgraceland (which also just aired its 100th episode). The first of my scripts to go live is the ✨season finale✨ to the latest season of Badlands: Hollywoodland, which goes deep on the dark side of Robin Williams’ life, leading up to this tragically complicated death.

I’m really, really effing proud of the work I did on this one. It’s obviously a sensitive subject, and one that really affected me personally on a lot of levels, and I think I did a damn good job of handling it with care, without losing the delight and humanity of the story. Also, it was just a cool experience scripting within an established episode format, with a pre-existing structure and stuff.

You can check out the episode below, or on whatever podcast platform you prefer:

…Also did I mention that, right after my episode premiered, we shot to #1 (!!) on the Apple Podcast History charts?! I GOT A #1 HIT, BABY! (in the same sort of technicality way like how I sort-of kind-of have a Tony Award, but still)

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